1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display device, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for detecting a preferred color, which is capable of improving detection capability of a preferred-color area, and a liquid crystal display device using the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
High resolution and high definition of an image display device has been realized according to user's requirements. Most users determine the definition of an image on the basis of a preferred color displayed on a display device, such as a skin color, a green color or a blue color. This is because the preferred color is stored in a color storage space of a person so as to have a significant influence on color perception. Accordingly, the image display device uses a preferred color correcting method for detecting a preferred-color area from an input image and converting the detected preferred-color area into a color preferred by the user, in order to display a high-definition image preferred by a user. In the method for correcting the preferred color, since only the preferred-color area should be corrected into a preferred color desired by a user and the other color areas should not be corrected, a method for accurately detecting the preferred-color area necessary for correction of the preferred color from an input image is required.
As a method for detecting the preferred-color area from the input image, a method for deciding an elliptic or rectangular color area using a color distribution of an input image, a method for deciding a color area in hue and saturation ranges using a color distribution of an input image, and a method for discriminating a color using statistics of a color distribution of an input image were reported.
However, in the method for detecting the preferred color using the elliptic area or the rectangular area, if an elliptical model is used, an elliptic equation should be computed with respect to all the pixels of the input image and, if a rectangular model is used, four linear equations should be computed with respect to all the pixels of the input image. Thus, a large amount of computations is required. In addition, the elliptic model is suitable for detection of a skin color, but is not suitable for detection of a green color or a blue color because the green color or the blue color which is distributed over a wide area is unlikely to be defined in the elliptic shape. In the method using the statistics of the color distribution, since a probability should be computed with respect to each pixel and should be compared with a threshold, a large amount of computations is required.
In consideration of the amount of computations of the preferred-color area, the method for detecting the preferred-color area using the hue and saturation ranges is preferable. However, even in this method, since the preferred-color area is detected using only the hue and the saturation, colors other than the preferred color may be included in a detected hue angle range. Therefore, there is a need for a method for accurately detecting a preferred-color area such that only the preferred-color area is corrected with a small amount of computations.